


About You

by Unsentimentalf



Category: Blake's 7
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:15:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unsentimentalf/pseuds/Unsentimentalf
Summary: It was with a sense of inevitability that he watched them make plans. Of course he wouldn't be able to sidestep the encounters. Just because he understood didn't give him any power.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 9





	1. Chapter 1

"Not everything is about us, Blake." Jenna flipped a switch and the diagram on the screen switched to another angle.

Blake could see Avon watching them. He'd been accused of arrogance often enough that he didn't particularly want to give the man another opening. 

"It doesn't do any harm to assume the worse," he said. "There must be something behind the ship movements. As far as we know the Feds don't break up their fleets for the hell of it."

"New report in," Cally said. "Movements out of the Betelgeuse Fleet. Looks like the same as the Earth fleet - ships moving out in twos and threes."

"Any clues yet as to destinations?" Blake asked. 

"Try everywhere," Avon said. "Early forecasts suggest they are headed to every major Fed system. That rather suggests that Jenna is right. It's not about us."

"But we could take advantage of the situation," Cally said. "Some of these groups are no more than a couple of pursuit ships. Liberator could take them out easily. "

"It's a trap." Blake said. "It has to be. They know what we can do. They wouldn't leave open targets like that unless they were inviting an attack." 

"A trap spread across the whole Galaxy?" Avon said. "There are scores of ships that we could attack. How would they defend them all? It's not like you to be cautious to the point of paranoia."

There was no way of telling any of them what was going on, Avon least of all. Blake shook his head. "Let's say that I've got a bad feeling about this."

No- one was interested in his bad feeling. It was with a sense of inevitability that he watched them make plans. Of course he wouldn't be able to sidestep the encounters. Just because he understood didn't give him any power. 

Resigned, he stepped forward and into the discussion. "We can assume they're planning something repressive. We ought to target a planet that can benefit from our interference, so one with a significant rebel group." 

"There are still two dozen possible candidates," Cally said,

"Then pick one at random. Make sure it is random, mind. Get Orac to generate it."

"You still think it's a trap." Avon was frowning at him. 

"I think we should go for a random target. Unless you have a better idea?"

"Random it is." 

He had a feeling that they were humouring him, but that was better than ignoring him completely. At least he'd done everything he could.

The two pursuit ships had just appeared on midrange scan. Liberator had raced to overtake them well before they reached their destination; Blake hadn't wanted that system to be blamed for their destruction. 

"Liberator to Federation pursuit ships. This is Roj Blake. Stand down and surrender or be destroyed." 

The ships accelerated away. Jenna kept pace with ease. 

"Put a shot across their bows, Vila." Blake instructed.

"Which bit's the bow?"

Blake wasn't entirely sure when he thought about it. "Close but don't hit them."

"Got it." Vila released a torpedo which exploded spectacularly, close enough to the leftmost ship that its sensors would be blinded for seconds. 

"You're sitting ducks and out of options," Blake told the blank screen. "You've nothing to gain by heroics. All you'll do is die." 

One of the ships broke away from the other, curving rapidly until it was headed in almost the opposite direction.

"We're going to lose one of them," Jenna said.

"I'm not going to let that happen," Blake said. "Can you cripple the one in front, Vila?"

"At this speed?" Avon interjected. "If we hit it at all it will disintegrate."

"Well, we gave them a chance to surrender," Blake said, "Take it out." 

The ship went straight past the cloud of fragments. "Get after the other one," Blake said. "I hope they got a good view."

It must have been good enough because the remaining ship dutifully decelerated when ordered to. At low velocity Liberator's lasers were surgical enough to take out their major weapon system and the engines.

"Now," Blake said to the unhappy woman onscreen. "Transmit a cooy of your current orders."

"Why should I, if you're just going to kill us?"

"We have no need to kill you or your ship as long as we get what we're after. When we're gone you're free to call for help." 

"And if we don't give you what you want?"

"Then we'll take your ship apart around you until either you change your mind or it's too late."

He could see her turned to speak to her crew. His were silent, not a word of dissent for once. This was a brutal encounter with a much weaker enemy and no-one on his side would stop him ordering the destruction of a second ship full of helpless people as unceremoniously as he had the first. Maybe this was what fighting a rebellion was inevitably like. Maybe it was something else, part of the game, part of the point. 

She turned back. "Transmitting now." She sounded sullen. Unpleasant things might happen to her for this, even though the two ships had had no possible chance against Liberator. Servalan might well take the view that they should have sacrificed themselves. 

Blake wondered if he ought to have come up with some plan to save them. No. His list of people who needed saving was impossibly long enough without worrying about serving Federation officers. They could have asked for his help but they hadn't.

"It's come through," Avon confirmed. 

"Wait." he told the officer, not that she had any choice, and he cut the link. "Cally, can you monitor that ship? If they twitch I want to know. Avon, play the recording."

"Was that it?" Jenna demanded.

It hasn't been particularity enlightening. The ship's instructions had been to pick up a consignment of heavily armed soldiers, reach the system by a deadline in two days time, make contact with the local government and stand by to forcibly repress any unrest. 

"Now why would they be expecting trouble?" Blake asked. "Every system at the same time?"

"A broadcast." Avon said. "Galaxy wide, simultaneous. Which begs the question- why would the Federation deliberately tell its citizens something that could cause riots?" 

Nobody came up with an answer to that.

"We can reach another two, maybe three systems before the deadline," Blake said. "Plot a course in."

The bright light woke Blake but it took a couple of seconds to gather his thoughts. "Have we reached Endoin?"

"We're still two hours out." Avon came to stand beside the bed.

"Is something wrong?"

"You tell me. Is this the Revolution that you were planning?"

Blake sat up and blinked at Avon. He was tired and resentful of his lost sleep. "The Federation had spread themselves thin. This is our chance."

"To do what? Take out a handful of their pursuit ships? They've got hundreds of them. You won't win your war that way." 

"We have to do what we can."

"Even when it achieves nothing? You're risking your only real asset to take out a fraction of the weakest part of the Federation military. Servalan will barely register the gap in her forces."

"The systems they were sent to oppress will know the difference." Blake insisted.

"Until another couple of ships are sent in their place in a few days time. It's not like you to take such an unimaginative approach to a problem."

He frowned down at Blake. "In fact none of this is like you. You're usually full of implausible schemes to likely get us all killed. Just slaughtering other people ship by ship isn't your style at all."

Blake winced at 'slaughter'. "You might have noticed that there aren't so many options right now. I'm doing what needs to be done."

"You're doing what's most obvious." Avon said. "And you're doing it as if you had no other choice, which makes me wonder what you know that you're not telling the rest of us." 

"Not the sort of thing you're thinking of," Blake said wearily.

"Try me." 

"I promise you that I know no more about what the Federation are up to than you do. If you think we're wasting our time, come up with something better and I'll listen. Until then, let me sleep." 

He curled up under the blankets again as the door closed. He hadn't changed. Avon was always critical, that was all. Even though everything was different now that he knew the truth, he hadn't changed. He was who he'd always been, Roj Blake, human, conscious, real. He'd didn't have any choice about that either. It took only a few minutes before he drifted back to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Blake could hear the voices raised as he approached the flight deck. He slowed for a moment, catching his name in the sharp words. For a moment he thought about retreating and maybe warning them he was coming via Zen. He didn't want to know what the argument was about and with luck no one would tell him. 

It was no good. He had to at least act as if these things mattered to him or what was the point of any of it? He turned around the corner and into the room. "What's up?"

There was an awkward silence, broken by Jenna. 

"We're nearly within comms range of the ships round Endoin. The Fed deadline is less than four hours away."

"Change of plan." Blake walked slowly to the centre of the room. "We're going to experience whatever they are planning from planetside. Avon and I will teleport down to the main settlement. Keep the ship hidden and monitor everything."

He glanced over at Avon, waiting for protest. The man never liked having his participation in Blake's schemes being taken for granted. But this time Avon just nodded slightly and walked across to pick up a gun. 

"Intercepted message from the surface. Two dozen Fed soldiers have just landed by shuttle and are making their way to the Governor's residence," Cally called out. 

"How do you intend to deal with them?" Avon asked.

"No idea yet," Blake was holstering his own gun with care. Avon had been right. This felt more appropriate than shooting at pursuit ships that couldn't shoot back. 

"When I suggested you eschewed the obvious I didn't mean that you should go for the outright reckless."

"We've got the teleport, and Liberator can take on anything in this system with ease. Until we know what this is about we'll have to play it by ear."

"By ear?" Avon said. "I see. Cally, you can operate the teleport. Don't move an inch away from it until we're back." 

The planet's terraforming was pretty basic. Thin scrub grew up to the edge of the small industrial complex that also passed for the only large town. There was no fence, so Blake led Avon quietly around the larger buildings until they were well inside the unmarked perimeter. 

"What now?" Avon asked.

Blake looked back at him. He felt as if this excursion was all part of Avon's assessment of something - his judgement, maybe, or his sanity. He supposed that he'd lost whatever confidence the man had had in him. 

Blake resisted the urge to tell Avon that it didn't matter what they did now. He didn't have any evidence that that was true. Gan had died, after all. Outcomes existed. He couldn't swear that they wouldn't vary according to his actions. Maybe Avon's life was on the line right now. Focus, he told himself. Act as if this matters, because soon it might be too late. 

"We need to find someone to talk to. Someone who'll keep us hidden from the soldiers while this thing resolves." 

"And how do we find that?"

Blake knocked on the nearest door. When there was no response he knocked harder. "Professor Yone. Are you at home?"

The door opened a crack. "Shouldn't you be in uniform?" came an elderly voice.

"We're not Federation. May we come inside? We're a little conspicuous out here."

The voice sighed. "If you were Federation I suppose you could just kick my door down anyway. Come in."

The door opened a little wider and Blake stepped inside.

The white-haired man put on a pair of antique eye-glasses and peered at him. 

"Roj Blake," he said. "But you don't remember me?"

"They wiped my memories," Blake said apologetically. "I only know you from the security records of this planet. They had you down as a contact of mine on Earth."

"So what are you doing here? Is this the start of your revolution?"

"Not yet," Blake said. "We don't know quite what this is." He explained about the ship movements and their conclusions. 

The professor glanced around his small living room. "This is a strange place to choose to witness a Galaxy-wide event from."

"Endoin is fairly typical of a Fed colony planet." Blake said. "What you and your neighbours think is likely to be representative enough."

"My neighbours are mostly up at the Governor's house trying to figure out what the soldiers are there to do."

"They'll be sent home before it starts," Avon spoke for the first time. “People are easier to control at home."

The professor frowned at him. "Well, you know your business I suppose. What do you want me to do?"

"Could you gather a few of them in here for the broadcast? We need to know what they're making of it." Blake said.

Yone lifted the glasses to peer at him directly. "I saw your confession on the vid, you know. If you're working for the Federation this could get all my friends and neighbours executed."

"That works both ways." Blake said. "If you call in the troops we're helpless."

It wasn't entirely true - they had both teleport and guns, but it could be a sticky situation. 

The man nodded. "I'll suppose I can see what I can do."

"How long have you known about your friend here?" Avon was sitting on the bed. Through the door they could hear a murmur of voices in Yobe's living room. 

"Since about half an hour before we came down here," Blake said. "I was looking through the records for anything that would give us options." 

"And you found an old Freedom Party member on a random tiny frontier planet. Isn't that suspiciously convenient?"

"Whatever you do, don't start counting coincidences," Blake said. "That way madness lies. As you said yourself, there's no way that the Federation could know that we'd come here." 

Before Avon could answer the small screen at the end of the bed blared into life with the trumpet-like sound that heralded Federation official announcements. Blake could hear the large screen in the living room duplicating the sound. 

"Here we go," he murmured to himself, oddly on edge. 

The Federation logo appeared, flashing bright, and a sombre voice spoke over it. "Citizens of the Federation. These are dangerous times for all of us,

A face appeared on the screen, heavy-set and scowling. It took Blake several seconds to recognise it as his own.

“Our enemies, previously defeated and brought to justice, are now resurgent and more dangerous than ever.” 

A montage followed; soldiers falling, a bridge collapsing, ragged children wailing, a pursuit ship blasted into fragments.   
That image was the only one that Blake recognised.  
The pictures of violence and death went on for longer than seemed possible. Finally the voice came again.

"By now many of you will be thinking what the Supreme Council thought. How can a small group of terrorists, even led by someone as brutal and murderous as Roj Blake, cause all this appalling carnage? Why has he not been stopped?" 

The scenes of violence faded out, to be replaced by an image of planet after green planet, circling glowing yellow suns.

"What they found, at the cost of the lives of hundreds of brave security personnel, is corruption at the heart of all the outer systems."

Black spiderweb crept over the fresh green planets, and the suns' warm glows turned red and harsh. 

"Blake's network of terror has invaded every planet. But today it ends."

The trumpets again, in the distance but getting louder. The web was curling up and dissolving, the suns brightening again.

"Today we expose the cancer at the heart of our beautiful Federation and we cut it out, for good. We know how terrifying it is for you to know that there are monsters lurking among your friends, your neighbours and your colleagues ready to tear down your community and murder everyone you hold dear. No more. Today we clean our systems and start afresh. Be brave and be loyal, people of the Federation, be calm and stay at home until further instructions. Very soon we will all step forward into a better world."

Blake was still staring at the blank screen as the trumpets faded into silence.

"It's a purge of the Council’s opponents," Avon said from behind him. "That’s ambitious."

Blake turned. "Ambitious? Is that all you've got to say?"

"It may well fail badly, at least on some planets," Avon said. "Fifty soldiers and two ships each aren’t much against an angry colony."

"Shock." Blake said, feeling it in himself. "They're relying on shock. Which means they'll move fast."

An explosion rocked the house. In the abrupt silence afterwards a voice shouted in the next room. "This is an illegal gathering!"

"We were just watching the broadcast," a woman called back. "We don't want any trouble."

Blaster fire, deafening and continuous. Blake started for the adjoining door, his gun raised. Avon grabbed him by his free arm.

"Let me go! They're massacring them!" He swung the gun round to hit Avon, who fended the blow off awkwardly without letting go.

"They're already dead, Blake! You can't save them." 

The guns had gone quiet.

“Let go of me!” Blake hissed.

Avon waited a couple of beats and then released his hold. “You’ll insist on looking, I suppose,” he said, “but be careful. There’s nothing to be gained by getting us in a firefight here.”

The soldiers had gone. Only the bodies remained. Blake checked them all for signs of life but the firing had been at close range. None of them had stood a chance. Eventually he stood up. The memory of the massacre on Earth was vivid against his closed eyelids.

“We have to go after those murdering bastards,” he said. 

“And then what? Lead a rebellion from this scruffy little town? Look wider, Blake. This is going on across the Federation and they’ve put you at the heart of it. We need to get back to Liberator.” 

Avon was right. Blake stood motionless among the newly dead and let him call for teleport.


	3. Chapter 3

"Blake? Blake!"

Blake looked up, only now aware that he'd stopped following the discussion. They were all waiting for him to take a lead and he wasn't anywhere near ready to do it. 

"You were wrong," he said to Jenna. "It was about us. About me."

"You were the excuse, that's all." There was more than a touch of disdain in Avon's voice. 

Blake rounded on him. "And if I hadn't been available, who else could they have used?" 

"Anyone else." Avon said. "There are bound to be other minor trouble makers out there. It's easy enough to turn one into this week's public enemy."

That was too ridiculous even to be offensive. "I'm just a minor troublemaker now?"

"You would be, if not for Liberator. They played your villainy on Earth up for the media as much as they could but then they sent you to Cygnus Alpha you weren't any more use to them. It was only stumbling on the ship that made you propaganda material again."

Blake took a deep breath, holding in his first response,before replying. "That's what you think we're achieving here? Creating propaganda to justify the Federation's repression and murder?"

"Not deliberately," Avon said. "But it's a side effect, yes."

"So you do think this mess is my doing, then?" His voice was bitter. "I'm sure you'll admit that we've been more than averagely effective at making a name for ourselves. None of the other 'minor trouble makers' come close."

"What are you after from me?" Avon snapped back. "Absolution? Condemnation? You really want to know if this is your fault? They used your name because you're an effective bogey man. You destroy things and you kill people. That makes it easy to convince people that they could be your next target. You did what you did, the Feds weaponised it. If you think you can fight a war without this sort of thing happening you're an idiot."

"That's not fair, Avon!" Cally rebuked him. "You were right the first time. Attaching Blake's name to this doesn't make it his fault."

"This is all irrelevant," Jenna said impatiently. "The real question is what we're going to do now."

They had to do something. Five thousand people had been seized from across half the galaxy. The simultaneous actions weren't just for the Federation's convenience. They were obviously designed to stop Liberator doing anything but retailating after the event. 

They'd found out that relatively few of the so called rebels had been killed in the course of arrest. After all, Avon had said, show trials were powerful propaganda. The professor would almost certainly still be alive if Blake hadn't persuaded him to hold that ill fated gathering. 

Half the Fed ships were returning to their nearest fleet with their captives. If Blake chose, Liberator would have time to track down and engage maybe three of them before they reached the safety of the fleets. 

The rest had stayed put, ready to quell unrest in the systems. Depending on how long the Federation tried to keep the ships there to intimidate the colonies, they could alternatively harass those ships away from a couple of dozen worlds, staying one step ahead of their pursuers. 

Both seemed to him entirely unsatisfying responses to such a galaxy spanning outrage, achieving little in the short term and nothing in the long. 

It was all about them again. Him again. Inevitably. He wondered if the Supreme Council had even noticed their own obsession. His guess was that they wouldn't, any more than Avon or Jenna would. 

When he didn't say anything else the others began arguing again. 

Eventually Blake spoke over the increasing heated voices. "They think they've got us both ways. If we don't respond it's evidence that their raids have crippled us, if we do they'll say that it's proof that the people they took out were working with us. Either way they can use whatever we do now as justification for their actions."

He looked round at them all, his eyes settling on Avon's raised eyebrows. 

"Rational thought? That's a new approach for you." Avon said. "A little late but essentially correct. What's your solution?".   
I   
"I don't have one. Not yet. But when I do, it's going to be aimed at the people in the Federation who are behind this, not just a handful of pursuit ships,"

"What makes you think we'll be able to get to them?" Jenna asked. "We know we can get to the ships, but Earth?"

"We’ll have the chance," Blake said."We’ll just need to take it."

"Do you believe in predestination?"

Blake glared at him. “Can we have this conversation somewhere else?” Avon’s new habit of cornering him in his own rooms made him distinctly uncomfortable.

Avon shrugged and stood back to let him out of the room, then strode off towards one of the empty living quarters.

“You haven’t answered the question” he said over his shoulder. 

"No. Of course not."

"Fate then? Predestination?"

The room had nothing but a couple of boxes. Blake sat down on one of them. It was too low and his legs had to stretch out awkwardly. He didn't bother replying.

"So we come back to the same question as last time." Avon said. "What is this inside knowledge that makes you so certain of what the future will bring?"

"I don’t have any." Blake said. "I’m just operating on the basis of how things tend to turn out."

"How is that exactly?" Avon sat down on the other box and smoothed the leather over his knees.

"Things happen to us," Blake said rather cautiously, aware that he was in very dodgy ground. "We get the chance to do things."

"I still don’t follow you," Avon said. 

"When was the last time we went somewhere and nothing unexpected happened?"

"We’ve got a fuck off huge spaceship that half the galaxy wants. The Federation have a list and our names are right at the top, and you expect to have a quiet life?"

"That’s exactly what I don’t expect," Blake said."Look, I’m not explaining this well, I’m sorry. It’s not inside knowledge. It’s more like a gut feeling about the perversity of life, if you like. If we go looking for Federation military leaders I’m sure we’re not going to draw a blank and come home again with nothing. That’s not the way things happen to us."

"If you think you’re fated to win this revolution of yours then we are in more trouble than I thought."

Blake threw a hand up. "I’ve told you. I don’t believe in fate. And we’ve failed enough times already that I don’t believe we’re bound to succeed. I just think we’re always stuck in the middle of things. Don’t you feel the same way?"

"No." Avon said. "There’s nothing there that the Federation wanted list and the fuck off huge spaceship can’t account for. The Galaxy’s a strange place and we keep sticking our nose into strange bits of it.”

He stood up. “You carry on planning your megaraid. And in the meantime I’ll take the ship somewhere unexciting and we can see whether your thesis proves correct.”

"What makes you think that you’re taking my ship anywhere?" Blake was up on his feet as well.

"Because you're skewing the data," Avon said."Everytime you take us somewhere that troubles likely to break out."

"Still no."

"All right then," Avon said. Blake didn't like his smile. "We'll put your hypotheses to the others and see what they say about it."

Blake knew perfectly well how weak his argument sounded, Avon would tear it to shreds in front of the others and he might have half a crew by the end of it.

He was no more able to tell them the whole of it without sounding crazy than he could tell Avon. He couldn't even guess what would happen if it was Avon who took the ship somewhere. 

"You get everyone's agreement to wherever it is you want to go," he said. "Mine included."

"That's a lot more consultation than you usually bother to do," Avon said."But I accept the stipulation. I have some research to do. I'll see you later."

The wine was sweet and his armchair comfortable but Blake was far from being at ease. He'd though that he could carry on without anyone else noticing any changes but Avon had ripped that particular wishful thinking apart. 

Now he'd spun a web of half, maybe three-quarter truths than had made little sense to him let alone to anyone else and he was going to be called upon to defend them to some of the most perceptive people he could remember meeting.

Also Avon was using this as a wedge to gain temporary control of the ship and Blake was under no illusions that it would stop with one harmless destination. 

He'd thought that knowing the truth might make some things easier at least, but he hadn't been able to stop caring about other people and he was certain by now that he wouldn't ever be able to just turn away. So reality mocked him instead of providing escape.

And there were five thousand dissident prisoners on their way to Earth. He couldn't remember being in this much of a mess since London, if that had even happened as he remembered it. There were solutions, there had to be, but he couldn't see them tonight. He drained the glass and turned reluctantly towards bed.


	4. Chapter 4

"You have got yourself in trouble this time," Avon said, without any huge concern in his voice.

"I'd worked out that much for myself." There was an iron cuff around Blake's ankle, chaining him to the wall of what could only be described as a dungeon. It wasn't actively dank, he supposed, but it was dark and a little on the cold side for someone still in the night clothes he'd been arrested in. "Why don't you tell me something useful, like what I'm supposed to have done?"

"You attempted to murder the President's favourite pet mura." Avon didn't seem to be wearing a bracelet so perhaps he was in trouble too. 

"The spiky horror that attacked me last night?”

"Mura are unaggressive vegetarians, as the President had been at pains to demonstrate to me. They don't have spikes. They do however have large black neck frills which were heavily decorated with gold and silver paint for today's festivities. In the gloom I imagine this decor might have a startling effect."

"It came right for me!" Blake protested.

"The quickest way from the presidential private quarters to the kitchens goes along that corridor. The beast was on its regular supper run. I doubt if it even noticed you were there until you shot at it."

The place Avon had chosen to trade with was far from the Federation borders and definitely independent. It also had a climate and atmospheric constitution that matched parts of Earth well enough to grow Earth delicacies like coffee, vanilla and red grapes, all far better than Liberator’s synthesiser could manage. By Orac’s predictions as well as Avon’s it should have been a trouble-free and rewarding visit.

Blake had predicted otherwise, but he’d kept his prediction to himself. The fact that he couldn’t work out what on earth could go wrong in this peaceful, welcoming place had made him even more tense. Sharing a guestroom with Avon overnight, he had found it almost impossible to relax enough to sleep. Avon, untroubled by such concerns, had been sleeping soundly. 

Eventually Blake had given up and decided to see if he could find someone to rustle up a drink. He’d taken his gun out of habit; it had been concealed in his pocket so that no-one should have been alarmed. If he'd been stumbling it was more because of the smoky dim torchlight than the amount he'd drunk at the feast. 

The creature coming towards him had looked not just dangerous but nightmareish. He'd got off a single startled shot and it had scuttled down the corridor and vanished. 

There was no-one official around that he could report the incident to so he'd woken Avon and warned him of the danger outside the door, then finally fallen asleep. He'd been woken in the early morning light by someone wrenching the teleport bracelet off his wrist and he'd been dragged down here. Avon had been nowhere to be seen.

"Oh. Right. Well, I will of course apologise profusely to the President for the error, and I'm sure we can compensate him generously for the value of the animal. Will it recover?"

"That is yet to be determined. The president is at its side, with his best doctors." Avon said. "The festival had been cancelled- six months of preparation cast aside. His advisors had some trouble persuading him against your summary execution. If it wasn't for the fact that Liberator outguns their entire military you'd have been in front of a firing squad at daybreak." 

"That seems extreme. These mura aren't sentient, are they?"

"No." Avon said. "Their primary characteristic appears to be the provision of mindless affection to their owner."

"Well, that's something, I suppose. You know I never like to throw our weight around unnecessarily, but given that Liberator is indeed in orbit and fully armed, why am I still chained to the wall?"

"Because having her wipe the place out from orbit wouldn't really help either you or me right now. I'm trying diplomacy instead."

"And how's that going?"

“There's some progress." Avon looked round for somewhere to sit down, didn't find it and leaned carefully against the wall instead. "We are trying to agree on an acceptable punishment. So far I have definitively ruled out both execution and long term imprisonment. I have told the President that Liberator will be leaving in the next few days and you will be on board."

“Punishment? Hang on! What sort of thing are you agreeing to?”

“Nothing, as yet, though amputation might be a possibility. I’m fairly certain that the med unit could regrow a hand.”

“Med unit!” Blake stared at him. “That’s it, Avon!”

Avon looked a little surprised. “I thought you’d be considerably more resistant to the idea.”

“Not me, idiot! The mura! Teleport it up to the ship and put it in the med unit.”

“We’ve never tried using it on a non-human.” 

“Liberator wasn’t built for humans. If the med unit can cope with us it should cope with anything.” 

“It’s worth a try, I suppose,” Avon said. “You’ll have to stay down here. They won’t let both of us off the planet.” 

How much of Avon’s enthusiasm was for a chance to teleport up to safety? It didn’t really matter, Blake supposed. It was still a good idea. 

It seemed like less of a good idea as the hours went by without Avon’s return and the guard outside his cell remained entirely uncommunicative. Surely he’d know if Liberator had left orbit without him; his captors would come in here and shoot him, likely enough, not leave him languishing in the dark.

He was sitting on the floor, head resting in his hands and eyes closed, when he heard the scratch of claws. 

To Blake the thing looked no less horrific in the light. Black and insectoid, about the size of a medium dog with a row of what were probably eyes on stalks and three sets of large protruding jaws in constant clacking motion. There was a frill around where he supposed the neck would be, flaring a good foot over the body in glistening stripes and swirls. Without being told he wouldn’t have been able to tell that the pattern wasn’t natural.

Blake resisted the urge to leap to his feet. Chained to the wall, there was nowhere for him to go and he couldn’t see any obvious vulnerabilities in the creature to attack. He kept very still instead.

The creature skittered slowly towards him on an indeterminate number of legs and stopped a couple of feet away, eye stalks swinging around each other.

“Hello,” Blake said softly. “Are you the one that was hurt? I’m sorry. I hope you’re better now.” He didn’t expect it to understand anything but his tone of voice, if that, but it couldn’t do any harm. Gods, it was ugly. He could feel his heart racing.

The mura pulled its eyestalks in, then out again. It started to move towards him. Blake held his breath. Go for the eyes, he supposed, if he had to fight it. He thought about extending a friendly hand but he might lose it to one clack of those jaws. Avon’s comment about amputation came unpleasantly to mind. Where were everyone else? The door was open but from the angle that he was chained up he couldn’t see through it.

The mura was up close now, its eyes swinging around seemingly randomly. It pushed its body against his knees and he could see that it was covered with short black fur. Again it pressed against him. He tentatively reached out to touch the fur. It was warm. The mura stopped moving and started to make a creaking noise. 

In for a credit… Blake tried stroking it. The creaking noise got louder and it folded up its legs and settled down against his, retracting all eyestalks except one which moved up to examine his face. It didn’t look like an aggressive posture so Blake kept on stroking it, trying to look as if he liked it. He really hoped someone would come to retrieve it soon. He still had a nasty suspicion that they’d sent it in here to wreak its revenge and at any moment it would turn round and savage him. 

Movement in the doorway; he looked up, his hand stilled on the creature. President Kwer, flanked by his guard, stared down at him.

“Mr President. I’m truly sorry for the injury to your pet.”

“Verista doesn’t appear to hold a grudge,” Kwer said. “If she had, no apology of yours would have been sufficient.”

Blake wasn’t sure what to say to that. He ought to stand up but he didn’t want to startle the thing. He’d started to stroke it again without thinking and it was creaking steadily. 

“Rista!” Kwer called. All the legs and eyes extruded at once and it scampered across the floor to its owner. An Earth cockroach, that was what it made Blake think of. He got to his feet with caution but he was pleased to see that it had lost all interest in him now that the President had dropped to his knees to caress it.

“The med unit worked, then,” he said carefully. 

“Perfectly. Your ship is very impressive, Blake.”

What was that meant to imply? “Thank you.”

“Release him,” Kwer said to the guard. “And escort him back to his room. We will be dining in an hour’s time, at which time I may have a proposition to make to you.”

“And my bracelet?”

“Will be returned to you, of course.” Kwer lifted the beast into his arms; it must have been lighter than Blake thought. “I’ll see you at dinner.” He turned and left. 

His teleport bracelet wasn’t in his room, and neither was any message from Avon. Blake tried not to worry too much about this as he showered. The mura was healed and Liberator must still be in orbit. The president had no reason to threaten him and good reasons to stay civil.

He stepped out of the shower and almost bumped into Avon.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Staying out of the way.” Avon picked up his shirt and passed it over. 

“You could have warned me that he was sending that creature in to inspect me!”

“I trusted that even you weren’t stupid enough to attack it a second time.”

“I was more worried about it attacking me!”

“I told you it was harmless.” 

Blake struggled into his trousers, the shirt loose around his shoulders. “We can get out of here now.”

“Not yet. Our purchases are still on their way to the ship and I’m reliably informed that dinner involves pineapple. I can’t remember the last time I had actual pineapple.”

“You might be happy to hang around here, but you didn’t spend all day in a dungeon.”

“Of course I didn’t.” Avon half smiled at him. “And now I’ve solved the question of why your life is so exciting.”

Blake tensed. “You have?”

“Yes. It’s clear that whenever things are going according to plan you have to go looking for trouble, even if it’s the middle of the night on a strange planet.”

“I wasn’t looking for trouble.” Blake said indignantly. “I was looking for a coffee!”

“Which necessarily involved firing a gun at the first thing you saw? You can’t resist the dramatic at every turn, and you think the inevitable consequences are the universe out to get you. I didn’t end up in a dungeon because I stayed in my bedroom at night. If you’d done the same then we would have traded, socialised and left without anything notable happening, just as I predicted.”

“You didn’t predict the mura.” Blake said. “You didn’t predict any of this. You can blame me all you like, but I was still right and you were wrong. Something happened.” 

Avon shrugged. “You’re your own self-fulfilling prophecy. If you can’t see it then that’s your problem. Do finish dressing. We don’t want to irritate our host any further. The coffee hasn’t been delivered to Liberator yet.”


End file.
